Trump: Born on Third Base

“’It has not been easy for me. It has not been easy for me. I started off in Brooklyn. My father gave me a small loan of a million dollars,’ Trump remarked. ‘I came into Manhattan, and I had to pay him back, and I had to pay him back with interest.'”

— “Trump: My dad gave me a ‘small loan’ of a million dollars,” Nick Gass, Politico

Trump père, Fred, left an estate worth $200 million in 1999, and son Donald, self-made man, inherited about $40 million of it.

“I’m running for office in a country that’s essentially bankrupt, and it needs a successful businessman.” — Donald Trump in Rolling Stone.

Donald J. Trump was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple. He isn’t rich because he’s a great investor. He’s rich because his dad was rich, because he likes to spend other people’s money, and because he enjoyed government incentives. But given that head start, just how successful has he really been?

“… Trump has not done nearly as well as other American business magnates, or even a typical middle-class retiree following sound financial advice, as a review of the numbers over the past four decades shows. He is a billionaire today despite this poor performance because when he started his career, his father had already built a colossal real-estate empire. And the wealth Donald Trump has accumulated since then has at times come at the expense of taxpayers or the banks and investors who have lent him money.”